Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

D >> Dickens >> Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40

Having thought of the matter with care, I approached my subject as
if I had never hinted at it before. I informed Wemmick that I was
anxious in behalf of Herbert Pocket, and I told him how we had
first met, and how we had fought. I glanced at Herbert's home, and
at his character, and at his having no means but such as he was
dependent on his father for: those, uncertain and unpunctual.

I alluded to the advantages I had derived in my first rawness and
ignorance from his society, and I confessed that I feared I had but
ill repaid them, and that he might have done better without me and
my expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham in the background at a great
distance, I still hinted at the possibility of my having competed
with him in his prospects, and at the certainty of his possessing a
generous soul, and being far above any mean distrusts,
retaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told Wemmick),
and because he was my young companion and friend, and I had a great
affection for him, I wished my own good fortune to reflect some
rays upon him, and therefore I sought advice from Wemmick's
experience and knowledge of men and affairs, how I could best try
with my resources to help Herbert to some present income - say of a
hundred a year, to keep him in good hope and heart - and gradually
to buy him on to some small partnership. I begged Wemmick, in
conclusion, to understand that my help must always be rendered
without Herbert's knowledge or suspicion, and that there was no one
else in the world with whom I could advise. I wound up by laying my
hand upon his shoulder, and saying, "I can't help confiding in you,
though I know it must be troublesome to you; but that is your
fault, in having ever brought me here."

Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a kind of
start, "Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is
devilish good of you."

"Say you'll help me to be good then," said I.

"Ecod," replied Wemmick, shaking his head, "that's not my trade."

"Nor is this your trading-place," said I.

"You are right," he returned. "You hit the nail on the head. Mr.
Pip, I'll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want to
do, may be done by degrees. Skiffins (that's her brother) is an
accountant and agent. I'll look him up and go to work for you."

"I thank you ten thousand times."

"On the contrary," said he, "I thank you, for though we are
strictly in our private and personal capacity, still it may be
mentioned that there are Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them
away."

After a little further conversation to the same effect, we returned
into the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The
responsible duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and
that excellent old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed
to me in some danger of melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal
that we were going to make, but a vigorous reality. The Aged
prepared such a haystack of buttered toast, that I could scarcely
see him over it as it simmered on an iron stand hooked on to the
top-bar; while Miss Skiffins brewed such a jorum of tea, that the
pig in the back premises became strongly excited, and repeatedly
expressed his desire to participate in the entertainment.

The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right
moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of
Walworth as if the moat were thirty feet wide by as many deep.
Nothing disturbed the tranquillity of the Castle, but the
occasional tumbling open of John and Miss Skiffins: which little
doors were a prey to some spasmodic infirmity that made me
sympathetically uncomfortable until I got used to it. I inferred
from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins's arrangements that she
made tea there every Sunday night; and I rather suspected that a
classic brooch she wore, representing the profile of an undesirable
female with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a piece
of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick.

We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it
was delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The
Aged especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a
savage tribe, just oiled. After a short pause for repose, Miss
Skiffins - in the absence of the little servant who, it seemed,
retired to the bosom of her family on Sunday afternoons - washed up
the tea-things, in a trifling lady-like amateur manner that
compromised none of us. Then, she put on her gloves again, and we
drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, "Now Aged Parent, tip us the
paper."

Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that
this was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman
infinite satisfaction to read the news aloud. "I won't offer an
apology," said Wemmick, "for he isn't capable of many pleasures -
are you, Aged P.?"

"All right, John, all right," returned the old man, seeing himself
spoken to.

"Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his
paper," said Wemmick, "and he'll be as happy as a king. We are all
attention, Aged One."

"All right, John, all right!" returned the cheerful old man: so
busy and so pleased, that it really was quite charming.

The Aged's reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle's
great-aunt's, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to
come through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and
as he was always on the verge of putting either his head or the
newspaper into them, he required as much watching as a powder-mill.
But Wemmick was equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and
the Aged read on, quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever
he looked at us, we all expressed the greatest interest and
amazement, and nodded until he resumed again.

As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a
shadowy corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr.
Wemmick's mouth, powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually
stealing his arm round Miss Skiffins's waist. In course of time I
saw his hand appear on the other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that
moment Miss Skiffins neatly stopped him with the green glove,
unwound his arm again as if it were an article of dress, and with
the greatest deliberation laid it on the table before her. Miss
Skiffins's composure while she did this was one of the most
remarkable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have thought the
act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have deemed that
Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically.

By-and-by, I noticed Wemmick's arm beginning to disappear again,
and gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth
began to widen again. After an interval of suspense on my part that
was quite enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on
the other side of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped
it with the neatness of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or
cestus as before, and laid it on the table. Taking the table to
represent the path of virtue, I am justified in stating that during
the whole time of the Aged's reading, Wemmick's arm was straying
from the path of virtue and being recalled to it by Miss Skiffins.

At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the
time for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and
a black bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, representing some
clerical dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of
these appliances we all had something warm to drink: including the
Aged, who was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed
that she and Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew
better than to offer to see Miss Skiffins home, and under the
circumstances I thought I had best go first: which I did, taking a
cordial leave of the Aged, and having passed a pleasant evening.

Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated
Walworth, stating that he hoped he had made some advance in that
matter appertaining to our private and personal capacities, and
that he would be glad if I could come and see him again upon it.
So, I went out to Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and
I saw him by appointment in the City several times, but never held
any communication with him on the subject in or near Little
Britain. The upshot was, that we found a worthy young merchant or
shipping-broker, not long established in business, who wanted
intelligent help, and who wanted capital, and who in due course of
time and receipt would want a partner. Between him and me, secret
articles were signed of which Herbert was the subject, and I paid
him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged for sundry
other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates out of my
income: some, contingent on my coming into my property. Miss
Skiffins's brother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it
throughout, but never appeared in it.

The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not
the least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget
the radiant face with which he came home one afternoon, and told
me, as a mighty piece of news, of his having fallen in with one
Clarriker (the young merchant's name), and of Clarriker's having
shown an extraordinary inclination towards him, and of his belief
that the opening had come at last. Day by day as his hopes grew
stronger and his face brighter, he must have thought me a more and
more affectionate friend, for I had the greatest difficulty in
restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so happy. At length,
the thing being done, and he having that day entered Clarriker's
House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a flush of
pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when I went
to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to
somebody.

A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens
on my view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass
on to all the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to
Estella. It is not much to give to the theme that so long filled
my heart.

Chapter 38

If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come
to be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my
ghost. O the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet
spirit within me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let
my body be where it would, my spirit was always wandering,
wandering, wandering, about that house.

The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a
widow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The
mother looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother's
complexion was pink, and the daughter's was yellow; the mother set
up for frivolity, and the daughter for theology. They were in what
is called a good position, and visited, and were visited by,
numbers of people. Little, if any, community of feeling subsisted
between them and Estella, but the understanding was established
that they were necessary to her, and that she was necessary to
them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss Havisham's before the
time of her seclusion.

In Mrs. Brandley's house and out of Mrs. Brandley's house, I suffered
every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The
nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of
familiarity without placing me on terms of favour, conduced to my
distraction. She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she
turned the very familiarity between herself and me, to the account
of putting a constant slight on my devotion to her. If I had been
her secretary, steward, half-brother, poor relation - if I had been
a younger brother of her appointed husband - I could not have
seemed to myself, further from my hopes when I was nearest to her.
The privilege of calling her by her name and hearing her call me by
mine, became under the circumstances an aggravation of my trials;
and while I think it likely that it almost maddened her other
lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened me.

She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer
of every one who went near her; but there were more than enough of
them without that.

I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I
used often to take her and the Brandleys on the water; there were
picnics, fete days, plays, operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of
pleasures, through which I pursued her - and they were all miseries
to me. I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my
mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the
happiness of having her with me unto death.

Throughout this part of our intercourse - and it lasted, as will
presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time - she
habitually reverted to that tone which expressed that our
association was forced upon us. There were other times when she
would come to a sudden check in this tone and in all her many
tones, and would seem to pity me.

"Pip, Pip," she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we
sat apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; "will you
never take warning?"

"Of what?"

"Of me."

"Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?"

"Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are blind."

I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for
the reason that I always was restrained - and this was not the
least of my miseries - by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press
myself upon her, when she knew that she could not choose but obey
Miss Havisham. My dread always was, that this knowledge on her part
laid me under a heavy disadvantage with her pride, and made me the
subject of a rebellious struggle in her bosom.

"At any rate," said I, "I have no warning given me just now, for
you wrote to me to come to you, this time."

"That's true," said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always
chilled me.

After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went
on to say:

"The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a
day at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you
will. She would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to
receiving my maid, for she has a sensitive horror of being talked
of by such people. Can you take me?"

"Can I take you, Estella!"

"You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to
pay all charges out of my purse, You hear the condition of your
going?"

"And must obey," said I.

This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for
others like it: Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so
much as seen her handwriting. We went down on the next day but one,
and we found her in the room where I had first beheld her, and it
is needless to add that there was no change in Satis House.

She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had been when
I last saw them together; I repeat the word advisedly, for there
was something positively dreadful in the energy of her looks and
embraces. She hung upon Estella's beauty, hung upon her words, hung
upon her gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while
she looked at her, as though she were devouring the beautiful
creature she had reared.

From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that seemed
to pry into my heart and probe its wounds. "How does she use you,
Pip; how does she use you?" she asked me again, with her witch-like
eagerness, even in Estella's hearing. But, when we sat by her
flickering fire at night, she was most weird; for then, keeping
Estella's hand drawn through her arm and clutched in her own hand,
she extorted from her, by dint of referring back to what Estella
had told her in her regular letters, the names and conditions of
the men whom she had fascinated; and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon
this roll, with the intensity of a mind mortally hurt and diseased,
she sat with her other hand on her crutch stick, and her chin on
that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a very spectre.

I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the sense of
dependence and even of degradation that it awakened - I saw in
this, that Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham's revenge on men,
and that she was not to be given to me until she had gratified it
for a term. I saw in this, a reason for her being beforehand
assigned to me. Sending her out to attract and torment and do
mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with the malicious assurance that
she was beyond the reach of all admirers, and that all who staked
upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in this, that I, too,
was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while the prize
was reserved for me. I saw in this, the reason for my being staved
off so long, and the reason for my late guardian's declining to
commit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a word,
I saw in this, Miss Havisham as I had her then and there before my
eyes, and always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in this, the
distinct shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which her
life was hidden from the sun.

The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces
on the wall. They were high from the ground, and they burnt with
the steady dulness of artificial light in air that is seldom
renewed. As I looked round at them, and at the pale gloom they
made, and at the stopped clock, and at the withered articles of
bridal dress upon the table and the ground, and at her own awful
figure with its ghostly reflection thrown large by the fire upon
the ceiling and the wall, I saw in everything the construction that
my mind had come to, repeated and thrown back to me. My thoughts
passed into the great room across the landing where the table was
spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in the falls of the
cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the spiders on
the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their little
quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and
pausings of the beetles on the floor.

It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words
arose between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I
had ever seen them opposed.

We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss
Havisham still had Estella's arm drawn through her own, and still
clutched Estella's hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to
detach herself. She had shown a proud impatience more than once
before, and had rather endured that fierce affection than accepted
or returned it.

"What!" said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, "are you
tired of me?"

"Only a little tired of myself," replied Estella, disengaging her
arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking
down at the fire.

"Speak the truth, you ingrate!" cried Miss Havisham, passionately
striking her stick upon the floor; "you are tired of me."

Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down
at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a
self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was
almost cruel.

"You stock and stone!" exclaimed Miss Havisham. "You cold, cold
heart!"

"What?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as
she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her
eyes; "do you reproach me for being cold? You?"

"Are you not?" was the fierce retort.

"You should know," said Estella. "I am what you have made me. Take
all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all
the failure; in short, take me."

"O, look at her, look at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look
at her, so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared!
Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first
bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of
tenderness upon her!"

"At least I was no party to the compact," said Estella, "for if I
could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could
do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I
owe everything to you. What would you have?"

"Love," replied the other.

"You have it."

"I have not," said Miss Havisham.

"Mother by adoption," retorted Estella, never departing from the
easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other
did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness, "Mother by
adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess
is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to
have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give
you what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do
impossibilities."

"Did I never give her love!" cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to
me. "Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy
at all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let
her call me mad, let her call me mad!"

"Why should I call you mad," returned Estella, "I, of all people?
Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as
well as I do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you
have, half as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on
the little stool that is even now beside you there, learning your
lessons and looking up into your face, when your face was strange
and frightened me!"

"Soon forgotten!" moaned Miss Havisham. "Times soon forgotten!"

"No, not forgotten," retorted Estella. "Not forgotten, but
treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false to your
teaching? When have you found me unmindful of your lessons? When
have you found me giving admission here," she touched her bosom
with her hand, "to anything that you excluded? Be just to me."

"So proud, so proud!" moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her grey
hair with both her hands.

"Who taught me to be proud?" returned Estella. "Who praised me when
I learnt my lesson?"

"So hard, so hard!" moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action.

"Who taught me to be hard?" returned Estella. "Who praised me when
I learnt my lesson?"

"But to be proud and hard to me!" Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as
she stretched out her arms. "Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud
and hard to me!"

Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but
was not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked
down at the fire again.

"I cannot think," said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence
"why you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a
separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I
have never been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never
shown any weakness that I can charge myself with."

"Would it be weakness to return my love?" exclaimed Miss Havisham.
"But yes, yes, she would call it so!"

"I begin to think," said Estella, in a musing way, after another
moment of calm wonder, "that I almost understand how this comes
about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the
dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that
there was such a thing as the daylight by which she had never once
seen your face - if you had done that, and then, for a purpose had
wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you
would have been disappointed and angry?"

Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low
moaning, and swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer.

"Or," said Estella, " - which is a nearer case - if you had taught
her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and
might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was
made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn
against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her; - if
you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take
naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have
been disappointed and angry?"

Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see
her face), but still made no answer.

"So," said Estella, "I must be taken as I have been made. The
success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together
make me."

Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor,
among the faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took
advantage of the moment - I had sought one from the first - to
leave the room, after beseeching Estella's attention to her, with a
movement of my hand. When I left, Estella was yet standing by the
great chimney-piece, just as she had stood throughout. Miss
Havisham's grey hair was all adrift upon the ground, among the
other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.

It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an
hour and more, about the court-yard, and about the brewery, and
about the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to
the room, I found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking
up some stitches in one of those old articles of dress that were
dropping to pieces, and of which I have often been reminded since
by the faded tatters of old banners that I have seen hanging up in
cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella and I played at cards, as of yore -
only we were skilful now, and played French games - and so the
evening wore away, and I went to bed.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40